


L'Espion

by DasWarSchonKaputt



Series: Clandestine 'Verse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Hahaha Look How That Turned Out, M/M, This Fic Was Meant To Be Crack, so many warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 16:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2857568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasWarSchonKaputt/pseuds/DasWarSchonKaputt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first words Kurt Hummel ever says to Blaine are, “Take the shot.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	L'Espion

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING  
> This fic contains: kidnapping of a minor, references to human trafficking, injuries, poor medical practices, characters being badass that are maybe not badass in canon, threats of bodily harm, references to depression and suicide, references to eating disorders, references to non-consensual drugging, family relationships that are maybe on the dys’ side of functional, explosions, guns, assassinations, bad practices re: come join my mega super-secret international crime ring, no, really, they’re fucked up, murder, character death (nothing graphic or soul-wrenching, I think, but see notes at the end for who it is), the fact that Sebastian’s nickname ‘Killer’ actually is kinda ironic, a whole bunch of illegal activities – just, don’t try this at home, kids.

When Blaine is sixteen, he’s abducted off the streets outside his high school. At the time, his mind is in a constant state of panic, because all he can think of is his brother’s job, and how much he is _not supposed_ to tell anybody Cooper sometimes consults for the spooks. He actually feels a quiet thrum of relief when he discovers that this is, in fact, just a regular kidnapping, where they want to sell him to the highest bidder.

A stab of hysteria pierces through an instant later, because _none_ of that is anything even approaching relieving.

Actually, he realises with the slow and steady horror of the already doomed, he’s worse off this way, because no one is going to be asking for a ransom. No ransom means no negotiations. It means no opportunity for extraction, and no way anyone will find him in time.

He’s on his own.

 

(When they ask – and they do ask later – Blaine will say that it was that moment, that thought, that made him join the army.)

\--

Blaine can’t say that either of his parents approve of what he is doing with his life, but he knows that neither of them will say anything against it. The kidnapping spooked them – scared Cooper too, honestly – as if they had realised for the first time in their lives that there were things that money couldn’t solve.

That’s not to say they didn’t try.

Blaine had the world’s leading experts directing his PT – something that was really not necessary, seeing as he only broke his leg, albeit rather thoroughly – and the amount of money his parents pumped into his therapy alone must have been enough to buy a small house. After his recovery, his parents then shipped him off to a veritable fortress of a private school, and to this day, he is honestly surprised they didn’t hire him bodyguards.

Looking at his classmates as he walks across the stage at graduation, Blaine thinks about what each of them are going to do with their lives. His roommate, Sebastian, previously told him that his life ambition was to become a gay, male Monica Lewinsky, which at the time Blaine dismissed as part of Sebastian’s eternal rebellious phase. Much as Sebastian may push against society now, though, Blaine knows that the allure of success is too much for him to resist, and he’ll either end up penniless, or owning half of corporate America. Blaine has placed his bets on the latter.

Then, there’s Tina, his English study-buddy. She’s already set on what she wants to do – human rights lawyer – and God help anyone who stands in her way.

It’s almost too easy to look out and go, _CEO, lawyer, CEO, stockbroker, CEO, guest star on ‘Made in Chelsea’_ , and he thinks for one second what they might see when they look back. _Dead by twenty-one_ , is what he decides on, because he knows that not a single one of them believes he’ll last more than one year in the army.

 

(He lasts two. From an outside perspective, it’s not particularly impressive. Cooper tells him the exact opposite.)

\--

He’s three months into basic when he starts to hear whispers. Sam, Blaine’s painfully bro-tastic bunk-mate, fills him in with relish.

“Covert ops,” he tells Blaine eagerly. “Apparently this is when they start pulling recruits.”

“Pulling?” Blaine repeats dubiously.

“For their own training,” Sam says. “You know,” and then he starts to hum the _Mission: Impossible_ theme tune.

Blaine rolls his eyes.

 

(They interview him for a spot on the division the next morning, and have made their offer by the end of the week. Blaine takes it.)

\--

The first mistake Blaine ever makes is getting shot while in deep cover. Okay, it’s not really _his_ mistake, but it all snowballs out of control, because the entire operation’s just been _blown_ , and his only friendly face is Marley, the other operative assigned to the job. It all ends with them camping out in a cave in the middle of the Hindu Kush mountains, waiting on an extraction that seems to be so held up, it may never actually come.

Marley helps treat his wound, and there is no way that it isn’t going to scar, not with the botched surgery that she had to carry out. Blaine’s just glad that it doesn’t seem to be infected. Marley’s mostly glad that she doesn’t have to cut Blaine open again.

They talk, sometimes, at night when the temperature plummets in the cave, and Blaine discovers a lot he didn’t know about his fellow operative. She’s an only child, and her dad was a war vet who died of heart disease when she was six. She talks a bit about how she struggled with anorexia in her teens, before her therapist started talking about structure and routine and she heard, _military._ Her mother is her everything, but since enlisting, she’s never been back home.

In return, Blaine offers up information about himself. His brother is a security consultant and generally works out of Washington. His mother and father are old money – well, as old as you can really get in America – and it’s his mom’s birthday in a few days. He doesn’t tell her that he’s been hearing _spy_ whenever his brother says security consultant now, and he doesn’t tell her that he’s not sure he’ll survive long enough to call his mom and wish her a happy birthday. The information he gives her is nowhere near of the same calibre as what she gave him, but neither of them are particularly surprised.

He is a spy, after all.

 

(The extraction arrives two days later. All Blaine can see is the blaze of helicopter blades before he finds himself slumping into unconsciousness. He wakes up a week later in a field hospital, his wound freshly stitched, and realises that he missed his mother’s birthday after all.

But he’s not dead, so there’s that.)

\--

“You’re kidding me,” Blaine says, or at least he tries to. He thinks the words may come out slightly slurred, but he is on some pretty heavy medication, so he hopes whoever this is will forgive him.

The woman in front of him, one dark eyebrow quirked, doesn’t so much as flinch. “I’ve never been accused of having a sense of humour,” she says dryly.

Blaine snorts. “I’ve already been scouted by the shadier side of operations once,” he tells her, “and it didn’t work out so great for me then, did it?” He makes a vague gesture at his bedridden state and the gunshot wound in his stomach.

“I heard chicks dig scars,” the woman offers flatly.

“I’m gay,” Blaine says, totally deadpan, and he may be mistaken, but it looks like the woman’s lips just twitched.

“The offer stands, Agent Anderson,” she says. “I think you’ll find DALTON has a lot to offer you.” Her brow crinkles. “Anderson,” she mutters. “Any relation to Cooper Anderson?”

“Older brother,” Blaine confirms, and his stomach drops in dread.

The woman’s eyebrows rise. “If I were you,” she says carefully, “I’d give your brother a call. Ask him about his job.”

 

(As she turns to leave, Blaine calls out, “I never caught your name.”

She turns on the spot. “It’s Smith,” she says. “Agent Smith.”

Blaine snorts. “I’m going to be hearing a lot of that aren’t I?”)

\--

It’s difficult to make the decision when the time comes for it, because as difficult as it may be to think this, he _knows_ why he was pulled into covert operations so early on in his military career. He picks up languages fast – can become fluent in just under a week if he pushes himself – and he has a sharp mind, but those qualities were just the icing on the cake. It’s because he isn’t white, he has racially ambiguous features, and he looks young.

It was fine, though. Blaine understood all that.

What he doesn’t understand is why DALTON wants him.

He calls his brother.

 

(Cooper answers the phone with, “She told me to expect your call.” It confirms every one of Blaine’s fears.)

\--

The Division for Analysis, Liaisons and Terror Neutralisation – a bunch of altogether meaningless words strung together to form an imperfect DALTON – is honestly the most terrifying concept that Blaine has ever come face to face with, and he once played strip poker with a warlord. (The story is nowhere near as funny or as fun as it sounds. You start to feel defenceless when you lose your pants to a hostile’s straight flush.)

It’s bordering on proper dystopian novel shit – an international terror response team. Maybe it would be okay if it didn’t feel an awful lot like bureaucrats playing God.

Blaine is put through his paces in his first eight months at Dalton, training, being given on the job interviews for places on specialist teams, before he’s eventually signed on as a solo agent and given a handler.

Agent Clarington doesn’t last very long.

Contrary to popular consensus within DALTON, Blaine has very little to do with Agent Clarington’s eventual decision to request a transfer. It is true that they end their first operation together with Clarington threatening to shoot him, but what most people don’t know is that Clarington’s wife went into labour during the last three hours of the op, and the only reason he didn’t leave there and then is that Blaine threatened to strap an explosive to his car if he abandoned him in _this_ hellhole without a handler. So, yes, they don’t get along, but Clarington is now happily working out of an office in DC, dealing with the paperwork from whoever decides to blow up an embassy on US soil next, and Blaine is never going to have to deal with him ever again.

(Until he blows up an embassy, and that one, hand on heart, _is_ a mistake.)

The next person assigned to his position as handler is Agent Smith. Only, she’s not actually called Agent Smith, does in fact possess a sense of humour, and is known around base as Cherry Bomb because of her surname, Berry, and an incident during her first two years as a handler that no one will talk about.

Agent Berry is utterly ruthless. She is honest to God _the_ scariest woman that Blaine has ever met, and apparently, the only reason she isn’t taking Broadway by storm right now is that her boyfriend was killed halfway through college and it made her re-evaluate her life choices. _How_ she went from ‘I wanna be a superstar’ to ‘I want to babysit professional killers for a living’, Blaine is not going to ask.

Agent Berry sticks around  a while as Blaine’s handler, and they get on pretty well. He’s heard some people around base refer to them as The Anderberry Duo, which isn’t the worst nickname possible.

After two years of successful operations, though, Agent Berry – who became Rachel a really long time ago – takes some time off work to visit family, and in the interim period, Blaine is assigned Agent Montgomery.

Agent Montgomery is the one who sticks. There are no stories around base about Montgomery, just that he is supposedly an agent among agents, whatever that means, and that he’s _very, very_ good at his job.

It takes Copenhagen for Blaine to see why.

Copenhagen is an op that goes bad nearly the second Blaine gets off the plane, and their primary objective rapidly switches from _take out the guy selling weapons to terrorists_ to _get the fuck out of here alive_. Blaine spends half of their time there drugged out of his skull, and in the end, escapes with three cracked ribs, a knife wound to the shoulder, and a concussion. Wes – because Agent Montgomery has _more_ than earned first-name rights – says he came off lightly, and sounds mildly impressed as he does so.

The make a pact in DALTON Medical that Copenhagen _never_ happened.

 

(The pact lasts as long as it needs to, until they’re stuck in bumfuck nowhere, and there is a _literal_ price on both of their heads, and their comm system is compromised. Wes’s voice blares in Blaine’s ear: “Do it like Copenhagen!”

This time, Blaine gets away with a grazed ear. He and Wes decide to take this as a testament to how much they’ve improved.)

\--

Wes slams a file down on the table in front of Blaine. It’s so heavy that it causes the metal table to shudder under its weight, and at least two inches thick. Blaine gives it a disdainful look.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Our new assignment,” Wes answers.

“They want me to … read the dictionary?”

Wes rolls his eyes and flips open the cover of the file. “This is our new target,” he explains, pointing to a black and white photo of a figure in a black hood. “He’s codenamed Porcelain by the international intelligence community and is responsible for the assassination of at least twenty high profile political figures, the theft of sixteen aircraft, and three counts of vandalism.”

“He start spraying his tag on shit or something?” Blaine asks, peering at the photo. “And do we have a better photo of him than this? I can barely see his face.”

Wes reaches into the file and brings out another photo. “This was taken three hours ago in Paris,” he says. “That there is Porcelain, chief assassin for Triple S.”

Porcelain is the sort of good looking that means most of your missions involve seduction, all impossibly high cheekbones and perfectly smooth skin. Blaine would say that he would, but there’s also something undeniably sharp about Porcelain, like a rose with thorns, and Blaine isn’t prone to making stupid decisions.

“What’s the job?” Blaine asks, closing the file and making a mental note to read it later.

Wes smiles grimly. “We take him out.”

\--

The first words Kurt Hummel ever says to Blaine are, “Take the shot.”

Blaine never actually hears the words – he’s too far away, crouched awkwardly on a rooftop with Hummel in his sights – but he can read them on the young man’s lips and he knows they’re for him. Hummel stands stock still, waiting.

Then, once more: “Take the shot, Agent.”

 

(Blaine doesn’t.)

\--

“Okay,” Wes says, running a hand through his hair and trying not to let any of his frustration edge into his voice. “Let me get this straight – you want to bring him in.”

“Yes,” comes Blaine’s reply through his the comm.

“You want to bring in _Porcelain_ , a man who has more kills to his name than a nuclear bomb, to join our counter-terror organisation.”

“Yes.”

“ _Why_?”

And that is the question isn’t it? Right now, Blaine is crouched on a rooftop, a gun trained on Porcelain, and Wes can count that there have already been three opportunities that Blaine has had to take the shot and kill him, but he hasn’t. Blaine was the wrong man to give this op, Wes realises. Too much compassion.

“He’s tired of running,” Blaine says. “He told me to take the shot.”

 

(It’s not enough to convince Wes, but then Blaine says, _trust me._ Wes doesn’t have a response to that.)

\--

“You’re the one who brought him in?”

Blaine is stood behind a two-way mirror, staring in on the interrogation of Kurt Hummel, or – as it currently seems to be – and attempt to sweat the guy out. Rachel has just entered the observation room, in a state that tells Blaine she dressed in a hurry but doesn’t want anyone to notice.

“Yeah,” Blaine says.

Rachel gives him a small look, then swipes her badge at the door to enter the room. Blaine watches her as she walks into the room and fixes her eyes on Hummel. Then, she withdraws her fire-arm – Blaine’s eyes widen; she is most definitely _not_ supposed to have it in the interrogation room – and pistol-whips Hummel around the face.

“You bastard,” she spits, then re-holsters her gun, blows a strand of hair out of her face, and leaves.

Blaine raises her eyebrows at her as she exits. Rachel gives him a flat look. “He was going to be my brother-in-law,” she says.

“Feel better?” Blaine asks.

“No,” Rachel says. “Not really.”

 

(“I killed her fiancé,” Hummel says tonelessly to his interrogator. “My brother.” Blaine flinches, but he does not allow himself to think that this may have been a mistake.)

\--

 _My name is Kurt Hummel_ , the transcript reads. _For the past seven years, I have been an active operative for the organisation you know as Triple S. We used to call it SS._

_What, like the Schutzstaffel? A Nazi thing?_

_Not a Nazi thing; a joke in poor taste. It stood for Sylvester Squadron._

_Who is this ‘we’ you reference?_

_Other operatives. Come on, you can’t seriously think that I’m dumb enough to believe that DALTON doesn’t know the sort of size Triple S has reached, can you? I know for a fact that you have files on nearly all the operatives I have ever worked with._

_Why are you here, Mr Hummel?_

_…_

_Answer the question, Mr Hummel._

_I guess I got tired of waiting for my bad karma to catch up to me. Decided to go hunting for it myself._

\--

It’s a long and complicated process to bring Hummel into the fold as one of DALTON’s operatives. It helps that Blaine has vouched from him – even if that fact has led to several not-so-quiet whispers of _compromised_ behind his back – and with Blaine’s efforts comes his brother’s political clout within the organisation.

Even so, the first six months after Hummel joins DALTON are among the most awkward anyone has endured. Those with the security clearance to know who he is either pussyfoot around him or act outright hostile, and those without treat him with a firm air of wariness. DALTON’s director blithely informs Blaine that as soon as Kurt is cleared for duty, he’s Blaine’s problem.

Wes glares at Blaine solidly for five minutes after _that_ revelation. “I don’t get paid nearly enough for this,” Blaine hears him muttering, and vows to recommend his long-suffering handler for a pay rise, or a promotion, or maybe just a vacation.

 

(Wes does get his vacation, and Blaine pays for him to jet off to Hawaii himself. He comes back early, though, complaining about how awkward it is to hide a gun in a swimsuit.)

\--

While Wes is on vacation, and consequently, Blaine is being kept around base to do paperwork and train up recruits, he starts to run into Kurt down at the shooting range. It quickly becomes apparent that where Blaine is skilled, Kurt is _masterful._ Kurt takes to spelling out words with his bullet holes, or drawing pictures, like a smiley face that Blaine could have sworn was mocking him.

They eat lunch in the cafeteria together sometimes, and Blaine thinks there’s something awfully brave at the way Kurt doesn’t even quiver under all the gazes fixed on him.

“You’re in love with him,” Cooper accuses, jabbing a spatula at Blaine menacingly. “That’s dangerous, little bro.”

Blaine rolls his eyes above his paperwork. “I’m not going to become some spy movie cliché, Coop,” he says, but it’s not exactly a denial. “It’s fine.”

Cooper twists the dials on the hob and it flares to life. He starts to siphon vegetables into a hot pan, picking up the occasional one to munch on as he talks. “I can’t help but feel you’re missing the point, Blainers,” he says, chewing on a carrot stick. “Don’t get me wrong; you made the absolute right call bringing him in – do you have any idea how _close_ we are to taking down Triple S with his help? – but you and I both know that romance works better when they’re not in the know.”

Blaine gives Cooper a pointed look. Cooper has a long list of ex-lovers, none of the _in the know_ , and all of them firmly in the territory of _bitter_.

“Contrary to popular opinion,” Cooper tells him, “it is possible to have a life outside of the job.”

Blaine tilts his head to the side. “Then why didn’t you come see me in the hospital?” he asks.

It could be in reference to any number of things, because Blaine has been down in DALTON Medical so many times since he joined three years ago that the doctors like to joke he should have a loyalty card, but they both know what Blaine’s talking about. _Why weren’t you there when I was sixteen and broken?_

Cooper’s normally infallible smile takes on a bitter edge. “I never said it was easy.”

 

(It shouldn’t be easy, Blaine thinks. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have been there.)

\--

Despite – or rather, in spite of – what Cooper says about Blaine’s feelings towards Hummel, they don’t actually run in the same circles. Chance encounters at the firing range and the occasional lunch date are about as far as their relationship extends. This is probably the only reason that Agent Berry manages to avoid him for so long.

“No,” Rachel snarls at the Director. “Not on my life, Ma’am.”

Blaine, Kurt, Wes, and Rachel had all received the same summons to see Director Pillsbury for briefing on an assignment, and as soon as Rachel had entered the room and seen Kurt, a clouded look had crossed her face. She’s standing now, ponytail swishing as she gestures wildly to make her point.

She would have been good on the stage, Blaine muses. A strong presence.

Director Pillsbury is decidedly unimpressed. “What about on your job, Agent?” she asks. Blaine watches as the director pulls an antiseptic wipe free of its dispenser and starts to idly clean one of her desk ornaments.

“Not on that either,” Rachel replies, then tacks on a respectful, “Ma’am,” at the end as Director Pillsbury’s eyebrows begin to rise. “With all due respect, Ma’am,” Rachel goes on, “putting me on a team with…” she doesn’t seem to be able to force herself to say ‘him’, “ _that_ is just asking for me – subconsciously or no – to get one of DALTON’s _finest new agents_ killed.”

Blaine glances sideways to Kurt who seems chiefly unaffected by any of the words to come out of Rachel’s mouth.

“Agent Berry,” Director Pillsbury starts sternly.

“You have my file,” Rachel tells him. “You know why I won’t do it.”

And with that, she walks out of the briefing room. Blaine shares a look with Wes.

Director Pillsbury probably expected this, Blaine realises. She was probably counting on Rachel to storm out, because this is the perfect way to send a message to Kurt. _You are still not welcome here by most. They are waiting for an excuse. Do not let them give me one._

Director Pillsbury then turns to Wes and Blaine. “Can I expect a similar reaction from either of you?” she asks, voice just daring them to act up.

Wes opens his mouth – most likely to say something incriminating – but Blaine kicks him in the shin. “No, Ma’am,” Wes manages through a wince.

She narrows her eyes at Wes and Blaine. “You two are the ones who initially brought Agent Hummel in, aren’t you?” At their nod, she purses her lips. “Will this cause problems?”

“No, Ma’am,” Wes says, and this time, he sounds convincing.

Director Pillsbury turns an inquisitive eyebrow on Kurt.

“No, Ma’am,” he says softly.

Director Pillsbury straightens herself up to her full, diminutive height. “Shall we begin, then?”

 

(Later, Kurt asks if the stories about Director Pillsbury are true, and for the first time in their relationship there is something akin to respect in his voice.

Wes snorts. “Every. Last. One.”)

\--

Not every operation Blaine carries out goes bad. There are always complications, sure, but more often than not, Blaine is returning home with nothing more than exhaustion to show for any of it. No one really has much to brag about from the routine assignments, apart from Agent Zizes, who once ended up successfully hacking into the Chinese intelligence community’s mainframe and _not_ getting caught with her dominant hand _broken._ Actually, now that Blaine thinks about it, that’s probably not the best example of an assignment gone right.

Anyway, the point is, most of the time, Blaine and Wes are more than equipped to deal with whatever they’ve been assigned, and they’re fine.

This is not one of those times.

It’s fucking Copenhagen all over again. Blaine spits as much down the comm link to Wes, who makes a sound of agreement. Kurt doesn’t ask what Copenhagen was about. He just mutters something that sounds like _fucking Caracas._

They barely get out of there alive, but when their extraction arrives and Agent Berry walks down to usher them upon the aircraft, Kurt looks like he might ask to be sent back in.

“Welcome aboard, boys,” she says, then nods at Kurt. “Agent Hummel.”

Kurt shoulders his sniper rifle and nods back. “Agent Berry.”

“Much as I’m loving this little reunion of mortal enemies thing you guys have going here,” Wes cuts in, “I am presently standing only by merit of the large amount of adrenaline currently pumping through my system and would like to reach something soft before I pass out.”

Rachel blinks, like she’d forgotten about them, but nods professionally and chivvies them inside the aircraft. She guides Wes to a blow up mattress and gets him checked over by a medical professional. By the time she returns to Kurt and Blaine, they’re slumped over each other, so still that it would be easy to think they were asleep.

Kurt opens his eyes. He shifts slightly under Blaine’s weight. “Rachel,” he says, and his voice sounds hoarse.

“Agent Berry,” Rachel corrects harshly.

“Agent Berry,” Kurt agrees, too wiped out to argue. “I didn’t kill Finn.”

Blaine feels suddenly like an intruder, like he should shift, let them know he’s awake and can hear this, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know why.

There’s silence, then Rachel asks, “Who did then?” It comes out probably sharper than she intended, but Kurt doesn’t flinch.

“Aphrodite,” he says. The name is familiar, and Blaine recalls it from deep within the monster of typeface that was Kurt’s file. She was Kurt’s mentor in Triple S, he realises, the one who brought him in, taught him everything he knew. “Quinn Fabray if you want her real name.”

Blaine hears footsteps – Rachel’s walking away.

Kurt shifts again under Blaine’s weight, then mutters quietly, “Go to sleep, Blaine.”

 

(It’s the first time Kurt has ever called Blaine by his first name, not Agent, not Superstar, not Anderson. Blaine sleeps.)

\--

“Whoa, Killer, is that you?”

Blaine freezes at the sound of the voice and feels the stab of panic that bursts through him. Wes’s voice is in his ear almost immediately asking if he’s been made, or if he needs back-up. Blaine shakes his head minutely, then turns, plastering a full-blown, mega-watt smile on his face.

“Sebastian,” he greets. “I see you did not, in fact, become a gay, male Monica Lewinsky.”

Sebastian Smythe stands before Blaine, suave as ever, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than the average New Yorker makes in a year. He fits in so seamlessly to these sort of functions, Blaine realises, and now that he’s faced with this, Blaine feels foolish that he ever believed Sebastian may end up penniless.

Sebastian laughs. “Haven’t you heard?” he asks. “I’m Fortune 500, Killer. Smythe Pharmaceuticals. Legal drug dealers.” He rakes his eyes up and down Blaine’s form. “I see you didn’t end up in the military after all.”

Blaine smiles genially. “I lasted two years. Got shot in Afghanistan. Honourable discharge.”

“So what do you do now? Professional escort?” Sebastian’s tone is designed to be gently teasing.

“Security consultant,” Blaine answers. He spots his mark across the ballroom from them. “Speaking of, I’ve just spotted one of my clients. If you’ll excuse me?”

Sebastian nods, and steps aside to let him go. As he leaves, Sebastian catches his wrist. “Blaine,” he says softly. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I’ll see you around, Sebastian.”

 

(After Blaine has finished the job that night, retrieved the data he was sent to get, and nabbed one last glass of champagne before making his exit, he looks up Sebastian’s number online. He calls on the way back to headquarters for debriefing and arranges a lunch date.)

\--

The only way the lunch date could go any worse would be if it ends in explosions.

Sebastian takes Blaine out to a restaurant so fancy that Blaine would usually try to swing it so he has to go here on an op and as such the cost of his meal can be reimbursed by DALTON – say what you want about DALTON agents; they know how to play the system – but Sebastian just sweeps in with a smooth, “Reservation under Smythe.”

Blaine is enjoying himself right up until their starters arrive and he spots two familiar faces across the restaurant from them.

And then Rachel and Kurt spot him.

“Hey there Killer, you know those two?” Sebastian asks as Rachel starts to make her way over, not able to see the frantic _abort, abort, abort_ signals Blaine is making with his hand.

“We work together,” Blaine grits out, just as Rachel arrives at their table and smiles happily at Sebastian.

“Hi,” she says, sticking her hand out. “You must be Sebastian.”

Blaine resists the urge to bug his eyes, schooling his features into a carefully controlled expression.

“You talk about me to your colleagues?” Sebastian asks, sounding like he wants to add, _aw, how cute_ to the end of that sentence.

“Mentioned you in passing,” Blaine says dismissively. “Rachel, why are you here?”

Rachel shrugs. Blaine recognises it as one of her tells of forced nonchalance. “Kurt and I were catching up a bit,” she says easily. “It feels like forever since we got a chance to chat, really.”

“You and Kurt literally share an office,” Blaine says in place of, _what the hell, you’ve been doing ops together for the past three months._

“You know how it is,” Rachel says breezily. “So often the job takes us away from the office.”

Sebastian is watching the entire exchange raptly, so he doesn’t notice Kurt sidling up to the table. As Rachel turns to introduce herself to Sebastian, Kurt reaches Blaine’s side and murmurs, “Pavarotti,” _straight into Blaine’s ear._

Blaine straightens up imperceptibly. Pavarotti. Oh _fuck._

Blaine wishes there were some way to convey just how much he hates this turn of events to Kurt, but he can’t because what was supposed to be a happy lunch date has just turned into an _assignment_ with Sebastian as the _mark._

 

(“Don’t forget to be back at the office for three,” Rachel says as she and Kurt prepare to leave. “You know how much Emma hates it when we’re late for meetings.”

_Debrief with Pillsbury at three._

Fantastic.)

\--

Director Pillsbury’s life-story is practically the thing of legends around DALTON HQ, starting with her terrifying military career and ending with her ascension through the ranks at DALTON. She’s pushed her way through war and loss and trauma and come out on top, and if that isn’t impressive, Blaine doesn’t really know what is.

It is true that Director Pillsbury has OCD – something which reportedly developed when she was betrayed by a member of her team in hostile territory and ended the experience with her partner’s brain matter splattered across her face – but it has never affected her work. The only evidence of it is the way her hands flitter over objects during debriefs, wiping them down again and again.

She is also married to William Schuester, the head of GLEE (Global Espionage Experts), who are essentially the people who do HR and head-hunting for spooks. Rachel was scouted by GLEE, as was Blaine, and half the other operatives in the building. Rumour has it, their marriage is more of a business arrangement than anything else, a political move orchestrated by Pillsbury herself.

She is a woman who has more than earned her position and for a long time, she was one of the only people at DALTON who Kurt respected.

She also looks ready to resign the second that Blaine is dragged in front of her by Kurt and Rachel. “What part,” she says, voice soft but face hard, “of _eyes only_ do you two not understand?”

Kurt and Rachel share a look. “He was on a date with our mark,” Kurt eventually explains. “If no one’s going to get blown up this time—” cue pointed look at Rachel, who just smiles sheepishly, “—then I think that places Agent Anderson quite thoroughly in the category of _need to know_.”

Director Pillsbury sighs. “I’m assigning you two to counterintelligence in Iowa, I swear to God,” she says, but it’s an empty threat. “Fine, let’s bring Agent Anderson up to speed.”

 

(It goes like this: the US government suspects Sebastian Smythe of building bio-weapons. _Jesus Christ, Sebastian,_ Blaine thinks.)

\--

Officially, Sebastian Smythe had no idea about what the factories in Virginia were being used for. Unofficially, he sold out his buyer in exchange for his freedom. Officially, he and Blaine haven’t seen each other since boarding school. Unofficially, his last words to Blaine were a bitter, _I should have known, Anderson._

None of what Blaine did on that mission was easy. Compartmentalization comes with the job – you build it up over the years, and Blaine has had five years at DALTON to do so – but it’s one thing to push details of complete strangers out of your mind as it is to actively plan how to take down the guy who kept you sane all the way through high school.

Rachel doesn’t seem to get it. Everyone she trusted in high school is either dead or insignificant, and she can’t seem to disentangle this from Blaine’s other missions, the ones where it was … maybe not easy, but simple. Point and shoot. Follow orders. Not… _This._

Kurt gets it.

He sits with Blaine silently in the hours after the debrief, not saying anything, just _there_. He offers to call Cooper, then stays when Blaine shakes his head.

And then he starts to talk. “Triple S recruit early,” he says. “I was … fourteen, maybe fifteen, when they first approached me. I was assigned a mentor – Aphrodite, but to me she was just … Quinn.”

A hand finds its way into Blaine’s hair, and threads itself there. “Before you join the organisation fully, there’s, well, I guess you could call it an initiation test. At the time Quinn told me that it was to prove your loyalty, but the more I think about it now, the more it seems to have just been another way in which Triple S tried to cut its operatives off from their support networks. My … initiation test, I guess, was to kill my older brother, Finn. I was sixteen.”

The hand in Blaine’s hair freezes for a second. “I went up to visit him at college in New York and stayed with him and his fiancée – Rachel. One evening, I was at home with Finn when the doorbell rang. I opened the door and there was Quinn. She handed me a gun and told me it was time.”

“But you didn’t shoot him,” Blaine finds himself saying.

Kurt laughs softly. “No, I didn’t.” He pauses. “I had the gun trained on Finn and he was freaking out of his mind – kept telling me to put the gun down, because whatever it was we could talk it out. I think Quinn knew that I was never going to shoot him because the next second, she had pulled her own gun out and shot him herself. Three times. Then she gave me the gun and told me that when they asked, I was to say it was me who pulled the trigger.”

“She was trying to protect you,” Blaine surmises.

“Yeah,” Kurt agrees. “In Triple S, training up recruits was kind of considered a shitty assignment and Quinn was kind of … well, she was kind of a badass. I used to wonder what she’d done to end up with me as her job. Turns out, on her last op, she’d fallen in love with the mark and gotten pregnant. Refused to get an abortion. She’d been on Coach’s shitlist ever since.”

Blaine knows that he shouldn’t ask this, but he thinks Kurt might want to tell him. “What happened to her?”

Kurt smiles grimly. “Suicide. She had postnatal depression. Her kid’s still alive, though. Pretty deep in witness protection, really, but alive.” He lets out a bought of humourless laughter. “I’m the godfather.”

That’s … pretty messed up.

“Go to sleep, Blaine,” Kurt says.

 

(Blaine sleeps.)

\--

Of all the bars in all of Washington … no, never mind. In all honesty, though, Sam Evans is really the last person Blaine ever expected to run into when doing consulting work for the Secret Service. There he is, though, dressed in full dress uniform, and ordering a martini from a flirtatious bartender.

“Lieutenant Colonel, huh,” Blaine states, sliding in next to Sam at the bar and causing the poor man to almost spit the entirety of his drink out over the bar.

“Blaine,” Sam chokes out. “What are you doing here?”

Blaine tugs on the tie he’s wearing pointedly. “Working,” he answers. “You?”

“Ditto, man,” Sam says. “I thought you were still doing, you know,” and as Sam starts to whistle the _Mission: Impossible_ theme tune again, Blaine can’t help but crack a smile.

“Honourable discharge,” he says easily. “I work as a security consultant now.”

“Sounds boring,” Sam comments.

If only he knew. “Could be worse.”

“You’re telling me – speaking of, are you doing anything tonight?”

That’s kind of a bit … off-piste. Blaine takes a sip of his drink – water, because Blaine has had to drink enough on the job – and says, “No, any reason?”

“How do you feel like making me look like slightly less of a loser than I am?”

 

(And that’s how Blaine ends up agreeing to accompany Sam to a high-brow event that night.)

\--

“What. The. Actual. Hell.”

This was not on the plan for the evening. Blaine was just going to pop up to his room, chat to Sam as he changed into something a bit more appropriate for high society, and then catch up with his old bunkmate. He was not expecting this. He is not impressed by this.

Rachel and Kurt are sat on his bed – his single bed, and don’t think he can’t see the bloodstains on the sheets – looking like a pair of recalcitrant children waiting to tell their parents about the detentions they got at school today.

“Uh,” Sam says awkwardly from behind Blaine. “Who are they, Blaine?”

Blaine says, “My sister and her brother-in-law,” at exactly the same time as Rachel says, “His lovers,” and Kurt says, “We work together.” Blaine desperately wants to facepalm. They are better than this. He _knows_ they are better than this. Fucking hell.

Sam takes it all in. “Okay,” he says slowly. “I’m going to go and sit in the bathroom with my ears plugged until you’ve all decided which lie you want to tell me.”

As soon as the bathroom door has shut, Blaine hisses, “What the hell?”

Kurt holds up a finger in the universal sign for _wait a second_ , then types out a message on his phone.

 _Ears on us._ He nods towards the closed bathroom door.

“We were in the area,” Rachel says. “Emma had some recommendations about which sights to see. We remembered that you were here and figured why not stop by and say hey.”

“Rachel wanted to take you out to that restaurant we went to last time – the seafood place?” Kurt adds.

_We were on an op. It went bad. Needed a place to regroup._

“Did you think to call Wes?” Blaine asks. “He got really mad about us going without him last time.”

“He couldn’t come.”

_Can’t trust Wes._

“Well, do we have any other friends in the area? A party of three isn’t much of a party.”

Kurt and Rachel share a look. “Well, there’s your blond friend, if you want to ask him.”

_Can we trust him?_

“I’d rather not,” Blaine says, glancing at the bathroom door. “I think I remember him being allergic.”

Kurt is typing on his phone again. He turns the screen around. _So, what are we?_

Blaine takes the phone from him and writes a response. _Rachel’s my sister. You’re my lover. We all work together._

Kurt and Rachel read the message from the phone and nod. Blaine hands it back to Kurt.

“I think we’re going to have to do the seafood thing tomorrow,” he says. “I kind of promised Sam I’d be his bro-date to a function he has to attend tonight.”

Kurt looks down his nose at Blaine’s outfit. “Might want to find something better to wear,” he advises. “But, unfortunately, no, I don’t think we’re going to be able to do another night.”

Blaine gives Kurt a communicative look. _I can blow it off if you need me to._

Kurt shakes his head.

Blaine nods. He walks across to the bathroom door and knocks on it. “You can come out now, Sam.”

Sam reappears seconds later. He eyes Kurt and Rachel balefully. “Got your story straight?” he asks.

Rachel sniggers. “As straight as you can with these two,” she says, turning the charm up a notch. Blaine can tell that Sam is already gone. “I’m Rachel, Blaine’s sister.”

Sam frowns at Blaine. “I never knew you had a sister man,” he says.

Blaine shrugs. “Family situation was complicated for a while. One of the reasons I joined up, you know?”

Sam’s buying it, and probably would have continued to buy it, if not for the knock on Blaine’s door right at that moment. Everyone – Sam included – freezes.

Another knock.

Then: “Agent Anderson, this is General Tanaka of the US military, please, open the door.”

Sam’s entire face pales. He mouths the word _agent_ at Blaine, then, face even paler, _general_. Blaine gives Kurt and Rachel a sharp look and they unfreeze, diving off the bed and out of sight. Blaine hurriedly musses his hair, trying to affect a look of _just rolled out of bed_ , and unbuttons his shirt.

Sam’s still gaping when Blaine ambles over the door and opens it the bare amount necessary so that it’s possible to see him from the outside. Stood in the hotel corridor, accompanied by a small entourage of soldiers, is General Tanaka, a stout, angry looking man, whose face seems to be stuck in a permanent scowl. Blaine has worked with him before, once or twice, and he can quite safely say that he doesn’t like him.

Blaine goes for surprised. “General Tanaka, sir,” he says. “How can I help you?”

The general is all business. “Agent Hummel and Agent Berry have gone rogue,” he says, and _shit,_ Blaine was really hoping that that wasn’t what this was about. “We suspect that they may try and contact you here.”

Blaine frowns. “I haven’t seen Agent Hummel or Agent Berry since I was last at HQ,” he says smoothly. “Any idea why they went rogue?”

General Tanaka, however, does not appear phased in the slightest by Blaine’s attempts to deflect. “Son,” he says instead, “why don’t you step back and let us in the room.”

 _Son_ , Blaine thinks. _Son._ He knows he’s young – twenty-five years old, young – but _son_? He kind of wants to punch something. “I’d rather not,” he grits out all the while making a hurried gesture behind the door that roughly equates to _do something_.

“That’s what I thought.”

“No,” Blaine says, diving immediately for anything to save the situation. “You misunderstand. I have _company_ , so _I’d rather not_.” He places an unusual amount of emphasis on the word, and again makes his aborted _do something_ gesture.

The general stares at Blaine. Blaine stares back.

And then, a voice comes from behind him.

“Hey, Babe, come back to bed,” and then suddenly, there is a half-naked Sam Evans pressed against his back, kissing his neck. Sam freezes halfway through the action, eyes fixing on General Tanaka’s face with what Blaine knows must be faked surprise. Sam straightens behind Blaine, and throws his hand up in a hasty salute.

General Tanaka blinks.

And blinks again.

“Lieutenant Colonel Evans,” he greets, and then, as an afterthought, “as you were, soldier.”

“Can I help you, sir?” Sam asks General Tanaka.

“No,” General Tanaka says. “No. Agent Anderson, you know who to call,” he nods, turns on his heel, and leaves.

Blaine watches him round the corner of the corridor, then shuts the door.

He turns back into the room.

“Okay,” he says as Rachel and Kurt reappear. “What the hell was that about?”

 

(Sam’s explanation is simple. “Say what you want, Blaine, but gay people make old men uncomfortable. Easiest way to make him leave.” He looks at all of them and shakes his head. “Agent Anderson, huh,” he says. “I should have known.”

“Sam,” Blaine tries, but Sam shakes his head.

“I can’t get involved, Blaine,” he says simply as he pulls his dress uniform back on. “I have a family, and I…”

Blaine understands. He watches Sam leave.

Rachel and Kurt’s explanation, however … not so much. “DALTON has been compromised.”)

\--

It was a simple snatch and grab mission, Rachel tells Blaine. Point and shoot, here’s the address, get the asset and get out. The only problem was that they weren’t breaking into some random location and grabbing some random terrorist – they were breaking into a _military safe house_ and _kidnapping a defector from Triple S._ Kurt had only realised the latter when the asset in question – codenamed Felicia – had freaked out upon seeing him, saying she thought he was dead, and then assuming that he was there to kill her.

“Kitty,” Kurt cut in at that point. “Her name was Kitty Wilde.”

Kitty had been shot as they tried to make their exit. She spent her last breath telling Kurt that there was a mole within DALTON.

 

( _No one gets out of SS alive_ , she’d said.

 _I did._ )

\--

“Shoot me!” St. James shouts, eyes wild and hair blowing madly around his face. “Go, on, Hummel, shoot me, but know that when you do, you’re nothing more than what you were. Still just Sue Sylvester’s lap dog, sitting in a gilded cage. So, shoot me! Shoot me, go on!”

Blaine can see the red dot from the laser pointer on Kurt’s sniper rifle trembling. He’s not going to take the shot, and it’s going to destroy them all.

Jesse St. James. Agent St. James was the mole. Agent St. James, who Director Pillsbury once referred to as her right hand man. Agent St. James, who has read all of their files and knows exactly how to make them tick. Agent St. James, who just last month, Rachel started to date.

“Kurt,” Blaine says into his comm. “Kurt, pull the trigger.”

The red dot quakes.

Rachel is behind St. James; Blaine can see her, limp and bloody. She’s out cold.

St. James laughs.

“Kurt,” Blaine says. “Kurt, take the shot. Take the shot. Take the shot, Agent!”

 

(Kurt does.)

\--

That night, Blaine sits with Kurt and tangles his hand in Kurt’s hair. He tells the story of his kidnapping, from beginning to end, like he hasn’t done since the police asked what happened. He talks about freaking out about his brother’s job, and realising that there would be no ransom. He tells Kurt how he got out, how he jumped out of a speeding vehicle and walked three miles on a broken leg to the nearest payphone.

At the end of the tale, Kurt sits up a bit straighter, and tells him about his team in Triple S. Santana Lopez – codenamed Desdemona, who killed her abusive boyfriend in her initiation test – and Brittany Pierce – codenamed Minerva, a hacker of the highest calibre and the sweetest professional killer Kurt had ever met – and how, when he ran for it, they were sent after him.

And how, when it came down to it, Santana fired three rounds into the ground and told him that he died there today, and that he couldn’t ever come back.

 

(“I miss them,” Kurt confesses.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Blaine says back, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Kurt curls in closer to his side. “Me too.”)

\--

Cooper is recovered from an operation badly injured on a Wednesday, and Blaine moves the earth to be able to be by his bedside by Friday. He has to take over seven connecting flights, endure several long layovers in backwaters where he is looked upon with suspicion, and hitch a lift with a chicken farmer to get to DALTON Medical in time. All the while, Wes is bitching in his ear, because he won’t let Blaine do this alone, but at the same time, desperately does not want to be doing this himself.

“Hey,” he says to Cooper when his older brother wakes up.

Cooper takes in Blaine’s state, and namely, the fact that he looks like shit. “I told you it wasn’t easy,” he says.

Blaine smiles minutely. “I still did it.”

“Yeah,” Cooper breathes. “Yeah, you did.”

 

(There’s a lot of talk in DALTON about how Blaine is just like his older brother. This is one of the ways he’s not.)

\--

On Blaine’s twenty-seventh birthday – because his twenty sixth passed in a blur of fire and adrenaline – Kurt walks up to him, and kisses him once, lightly on the lips. And then, because Kurt looks like he’s going to walk away afterwards, Blaine grabs him and kisses him again. Harder. Solidly.

Kurt breaks the kiss. “Guess this means no more lipstick missions,” he says.

Blaine recognises it for what it is. _This is something._

“Yeah,” he agrees.

 

(This is the other.)

**Author's Note:**

> I play hard and fast with the character's lives. Finn is dead, Quinn is dead, Kitty dies, Jesse dies.


End file.
